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Donald Trump targets environmental and climate rules as Scott Pruitt prepares to take EPA role

Washington: The US Senate is expected to approve President Donald Trump's pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday despite objections from Democrats and green groups worried he will gut the agency.

Mr Trump's nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has been mired in controversy.  

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Mr Pruitt sued the agency he will lead more than a dozen times while lead prosecutor of his oil and gas producing state, and has expressed doubts about the science behind climate change.

However many Republican lawmakers view him as a welcome change at the top of the EPA, an agency they say declared war on the coal industry during Barack Obama's presidency with its rules against carbon emissions.

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Already the Trump administration is preparing executive orders to ease regulation on drillers and miners, according to two White House sources. 

​Democratic Senator Ben Cardin said on Thursday he was concerned Mr Pruitt's opposition to Mr Obama's landmark Clean Power Plan to reduce emissions from coal and natural gas burning plants would hurt the domestic environment and international efforts to curb climate change.

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Other opponents of Mr Pruitt's nomination have expressed concerns about his ties to the energy industry. An Oklahoma court this week ordered Mr Pruitt to turn over 3,000 emails between his office and energy companies after a watchdog group, the Centre for Media and Democracy, sued for their release.

The Natural Resources Defence Council, a national environmental group, had called on the Senate to delay the vote until those emails can be reviewed.

"These emails will tell us – in Pruitt's own words – whether he will continue to protect polluter profits or defend our environment and health," said NRDC President Rhea Suh.

Mr Trump is expected to quickly issue between two and five executive orders to reshape the EPA, sources said.

He has promised to slash environmental rules to bolster the drilling and coal mining industries, but has vowed to do so without compromising air and water quality.  

The directives would dismantle Obama-era policies governing carbon dioxide and water pollution that put the US on the front line in the battle against climate change.

Mr Trump has already signed legislation to repeal an Obama-era regulation requiring coal mining companies to clean up streams after they are done with their work.

Environmentalists warned that these reversals would mark a major change in the role the US plays internationally on climate change.

"Undermining the international leadership the US has shown on climate action would be an enormous mistake of historic consequence," said John Coequyt, global climate policy director for the Sierra Club. "If Trump does follow through, it would mean he is declaring open season on our air, water and climate while further destabilising our role in the world."

Fighting climate change

The Clean Power Plan, which Mr Trump has vowed to rescind, is aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions from electricity to 32 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Under Mr Pruitt, Oklahoma joined more than two dozen other states in challenging that EPA rule, arguing that the agency overstepped its regulatory authority by giving states broad carbon-cutting mandates.

Conservatives want Mr Pruitt to make deep changes in the structure and approach of the EPA, including by revisiting the agency's 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public health and environment. 

It is not clear when – or if – Mr Trump will make good on his frequent campaign promise to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord, a 2015 United Nations agreement to curtail greenhouse gas emissions that was adopted by nearly 200 countries.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told senators last month that the US should remain part of the Paris pact to "maintain its seat at the table." The UK government also is pressing Mr Trump to stick with the accord.

Mr Trump has relatively wide latitude to unilaterally withdraw from the Paris deal, because it was treated as an executive agreement rather than a treaty requiring Senate approval. Under its terms, parties to the deal must wait until November 2019 to submit a notice of withdrawal, but Mr Trump could pull out more quickly by removing the US from the underlying 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, its parent treaty.

Bloomberg, Reuters

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